From the dawn of civilization people have directly transmitted information from one person to another. Information was first transmitted by speech and later by the written word. Writings enabled people to transmit information by messengers from a location in which the sender of the writing was present to another location where the receiver was present. In time, postal services were developed in which a person would deliver a letter to the post office (hereinafter “post”) in one city and an agent of the post office would deliver that letter to a post office in another city, where the letter would be picked up by the person to whom the letter was sent.
Ever since the numeric codification of streets and buildings received general acceptance, an individuals' name and their household postal addresses have been linked. The sender of a letter or package would deliver a letter or package to the post office, that had the correct recipient postal address and the post office would deliver the letter or package to the numeric street address of the recipient of the letter or package. A correct recipient postal address for the delivery of the letter or package to the recipient included: the name of the recipient; the street address of the recipient; the city and state of the recipient; and the zip code of the recipient. Thus, the correct recipient postal address is usually the actual location of the recipient.
The post office also delivers letters and packages to post office boxes. A post office box is a locked receptacle, located at a specific post office, where the box has been assigned to a specific recipient so that correctly addressed letters and packages may be delivered to the box by the post office and be removed by the recipient. A correct recipient post office box address for the delivery of the letter or package to the recipient's post office box included: the name of the recipient; the number of the post office box of the recipient's; the city and state where the recipient post office box is located; and the zip code of the post office where the recipient's post office box is located.
One of the reasons why recipients of letters and packages rent post office boxes is that the recipient did not want the sender of the letter or package to know the actual location of the recipient. The above reason for having post office boxes has increased dramatically in the past few years because many people are conducting business out of their homes and they do not want certain senders of letters and packages to know the location of their homes. Thus, there has been a tremendous increase in the use of post office boxes. Consequently, the post at certain post offices is experiencing a shortage of post office boxes.
A disadvantage of the prior art is that renters of post office boxes have to go to the post office where the post office box is located to receive their letters and packages. Thus, the owners of business run out of the home and others are expending additional time to retrieve their letters and packages.
Another disadvantage of the prior art is that if renters of post office boxes do not remove their letters and packages before the post office box is full, the post has to specially handle the excess letters and packages.
A further disadvantage of the prior art is that post office boxes consume a large amount of space at post offices.
A additional disadvantage of the prior art is that when the renter of a post office box goes to a different location, i.e., on vacation there is no mechanism for redirecting the letters and packages located in the post office box to the different location.